In Belgium we have a saying 'the best skippers stand ashore'. That's kind off what I've been doing in all or your threads lately, commenting on what you should do, but not doing anything myself. The time to remedy that has come and I will be starting my first PBEM and AAR. My opponent is SqzMyLemon, a friendly Canadian who has graciously offered to take the Japanese side in this battle of the newbies.

It's a scenario 1 game, historical first turn, PDU off with 1 day turn cycles. House rules are the standard ones, PP's for Manchuko units No naval bombing under 10,000 feet No strategic bombing in China

I'll now give my opponent the chance to say a word and then this thread will become the place for all the sneaky plans, great victories and shameful defeats of the allied forces. I hope you all enjoy it.

Watching all this AAR´s showing up i feel a slight pressure to start the PBEM i plan with Rob Brennan but im more the slow and careful type, colleccting a bit more experience and i want to wait for the next patch anyway (did anybody say chicken?? )

anyways, as always, high respect for anybody who crosses the bridge to fight a biological brain.

Popping in to say hello and add my 2 cents worth before I'm no longer welcome, which will be right after this post sadly. I've got two PBEM's started now both as the Japanese, nothing like jumping in feet first they say. However my game with Smeulders will be my first ever attempt at an AAR as well. I'm really looking forward to playing this matchup, but feel a little intimidated by my opponent. I've followed his posts on many of the topics and I think he understands the mechanics of the game much better than myself, so I've my work cut out for me. My main goal is to try and make it challenging regardless. A little overwhelmed by the sheer complexities of the Japanese situation, but no better way to learn than by my mistakes

Good luck Smeulders and have fun.

I'll start my AAR in a few days once I get things sorted out and some objectives in mind, right now it's sort of like "you guys go there and see what happens."

Feel free to pop over anytime and see the dark side. Input on game mechanics, advice, or just to see how things are going are welcome and appreciated as long as neither thread gets compromised. Hope you all enjoy the matchup.

Tennessee and a midget sub were the two ships that kicked off the war. The little thing actually managed to get into Pearl and torpedo the BB. That sort of thing of course isn't supposed to happen and his failure to sink a single capital ship in PH and hit force Z seemed to even out the karma. There were a a couple of worrying sights though, nearly all BB got more then 2 torpedoes in them, so I figured I'd lose one or two and quite a bit of the cruisers shared in the blows. The actual turn brought a disillusionment.

This was what I found in Pearl, Nevada and Helena already sunk, Tennessee and Pennsylvania will likely follow. On the other side of the pacific the disappointment was even greater, force Z didn't need to be turned around, it was already heading to Singapore as an escort TF. Repulse was sunk and POW is at 7/50/23. She'll go to Singapore to get her minor damaged patched, which should bring her up to 0/44/12, she'll then head to Colombo and Cape Town. I hope that the 44 float won't be too much of a gamble, but I don't want her to stay in Singapore too long.

One last bit of damage reporting, the PH airforce and it's base. Runway damage is up to 70, but I'm thinking that'll be repaired enough for my CAP to fly tomorrow. If it isn't and he attacks again, I'm in big trouble as I chose to keep the fleet in PH. The PH airforce took quite a pounding, loses are 31! catalinas, 8 Mohawks, 25 P-40B, 6 havocs and 12 fortress D/E.

My defence in the Philippines will be inspired by the Australians from World Defence. They've proven that overeager Japanese forces can be punished. To do so I'll keep a screen of Philippine divisions in the clear hexes Northeast of Clark and Manilla, bad defensive terrain, but therefore good terrain for counterattacks. They can be quickly reinforced by the tank battalions and some other light forces if opposition is light, else they'll fall back. South of Manilla there will also be small screening forces. The last stand will be at Bataan, good defensive terrain and it's good for delaying your opponent as it takes him quite some time to walk his forces in and out.

PT boats will be attacking landing forces and maybe the DDs will sortie if opposition seems light, otherwise they'll join naval forces near Java. The evacuation of ships will start once I know where the Ryuyo is. I am already experimenting with sending xAKL on very short trips that they can make during the night and auto-disbanding them to keep them from being attacked by carrier planes on naval attack.

The air force will try to hold out as long as possible, but has taken pretty serious damage already. The P-40E at Iba squadron is out of it, with only 2 active planes, though it does have 17 damaged ones, I hope they get repaired quickly. CAP is at 15000 feet, that should be high enough. In case it all goes downhill too fast, I'll withdraw the P-40E squadrons to fill out the squadrons destined for Australia.

Damage Control As expected, the Pennsylvania and Tennessee sunk, bringing the casualty bill from PH up to 3 BB, 1 CL, 1 AV and an AM, could be worse. There are no more ships on fire, so the rest at least shouldn't sink.

POW made it to Singapore, but not before being attacked by a night naval strike. No hits, but Lemon did get a report that she was heavily damaged. Minor damage should be repaired in 10 days time at pierside.

Philippines The air force is taking a pounding, no less then 12 P-40E were lost over Manilla today. I'm going to bump up Cap hight and see what it gives. Congrats to FO Daley though, he gained 2 kills on his first ever mission over Clark. We may have lost track of Ryuyo, there is an unidentified TF some 400 miles to the east of Mindanao, I'm guessing that's her. Likely action is that she'll go into the Celebes sea to cut off retreating merchants.

Malaya Many naval attacks go in against Khota Baru, unfortunately without fighter cover, leading to high losses. Large bombing raids are mounted against Georgetown airfield.

The pacific Second day strikes against PH, but only by a couple of Zero squadrons. My opponent is saying they were launched by mistake, they only ran into light CAP as the field is still heavily damaged and many planes are being repaired.

An opportunity may have presented itself here. Our recon planes have sighted a TF some 200 miles west from Midway, believed to be the opponents oilers. I am guessing they are heading for Truk, but will only later turn southwest to stay away from our carriers. Lexington will be sent straight North, were she may intercept this TF and maybe sink a couple of these valuable ships. KB is believed to be outside of striking range, though not on the overview map TFs are sighted some 300 miles west from PH. The danger is that the KB has been split up, with some going Nortwest to protect the oilers and some heading straight for Truk (This is also the reason I believe the oilers to be making for Truk) . If I have missed the first group, they may be closer then I think.

Short update : the plan worked perfectly, my carrier came within striking distance during the AM phase and would still have been close enough in the PM phase to launch additional attacks. Unfortunately, it seems that there are 2 support groups travelling behind the KB. One with 5 or 6 fast oilers and one with a single slow one, guess which one I attacked. Still, it's nice to see a plan work and one oiler less is always good. More updates once I get the turn.

A typical start of the game turn today, landings in the Philippine start SUBS A mention in the dispatches for the KXI, this Dutch sub tried twice yesterday but today succeeded in sinking the first Japanese vessel of the war, DMS W-3, she's hurt quite badly in return but will make it. Sargo hit an xAK of Vigan Multiple attacks from various other subs North of the Philippines. I-10 sunk a large xAK near Fiji, I hadn't expected subs there yet, so the convoy was unescorted.

Philippines Landings started today near Vigan and Aparri. The British MTB tried to attack transports at Vigan but had to retreat when confronted with a large DD force. A similiar force is also at Aparri, making work dangerous for my subs. Lots of sweeps, but the loss ratio is good for the moment. No attacks on fleeing shipping as of yet, but I have lost track of Ryuyo.

Malaya Fighters sweeps, buffaloes seem to be holding there own at the moment against the Nates

Pacific As mentioned in my previous post, dive bombers from Lexington are the first Americans to sink enemy shipping. A TF is sighted somewhat West of the French Frigate shoals, it might be KB or the oilers, to be on the safe side Lex will start a high speed run to stay well clear of it.

Yet another front were the allies won't be able to do much. The plan here is to gather the forces in Singapore and try and hold out there as long as possible. The air force will bomb the enemy spearhead to slow them down as much as possible. Units on the major road will have to stop the advance as long as possible to keep retreat routes open for the units from Khota Baru and Kuantan, though the forts at Georgetown will likely do most of this work. I will be keeping some xAKL and small xAP at bases on the west coast of Sumatra to evac the air units to India.

sorry if I got you wrong, not sure, probably you are aware of this anyway: Georgetown can be bypassed/units at Georgetown can be trapped if your opponent moves into Taiping. Thus yes, you can try to make a stand at Georgetown, using the available forts, but if you do, the units which defend the forts there will most likely not make it back to Singapore.

I was actually referring to the 'Penang Fort' unit at Georgetown, but I seem to have overestimated that one. Still, arriving, fighting next day and only then moving on is still a 2 day delay. Maybe I'll leave behind a battalion sized unit or two so his armour has to wait for some reinforcements. Thanks for the input.

Not sure whether a batallion or an attack relying on tanks rather than an infantry regiment would make a difference... But if I had left anything else there, it would have been lost because my opponent moved into Georgetown and Taiping in the same move.

I can recommend setting the units at Singapore that are fully prepped for that destination to rest mode, - you will gain a bit of experience and improve morale notably. Not that this will help much...

I'm guessing I'll have some advance warning that he's moving to Taiping, it's a 23 mile hike through jungle and 23 over a minor road, so when the arrows show up, I can still wait a day or two until defenders at Georgetown need to be retreated. Not all units need to reach Singapore though, I've no problem losing a couple of the smaller ones if it means a couple of extra days to prepare defenses.

Smeulders, looking forward to the AAR. Not a bad move there on the Oilers.

I did Malaya and Phillipines differently; from the opening gun I moved everyone to Clark and Singapore.

On Malaya, you must keep a strong force at Mersing, and defend bases against Para attack, but other than that, the Japanese will get down the peninsula at about the speed they can walk it. Keeping units forward is only going to increase your losses IMO, but we'll see if I am right.

In the PI, leaving units in the open can backfire if you don't withdraw quickly. In my PBEM as Japan, I destroyed 3-4 forward deployed PI division early, which made it easier to close out Luzon, which I did at the end of January.

I'm guessing I'll have some advance warning that he's moving to Taiping, it's a 23 mile hike through jungle and 23 over a minor road, so when the arrows show up, I can still wait a day or two until defenders at Georgetown need to be retreated. Not all units need to reach Singapore though, I've no problem losing a couple of the smaller ones if it means a couple of extra days to prepare defenses.

you are correct, my opponent's unit was in the hex for about a week and I started the retreat from Georgetown, where I had moved the troops from Alor Star, on day 3. Re. the little arrows- well, maybe I should bomb some less and scout some more. Problem is that I felt chronically short of aircraft/squadrons in the theater to begin with, combat did not improve that and I was more interested in keeping aware of what is at what airbase. I think you are also correct in planning not to move everything in one rush but slowly, at least displaying that you would defend in some places.

A big problem for me in this context (which was especially bad in the PI, where two or three divisions always arrived at or left a hex a turn too late) are the movement times -you may have read the repeated 46 miles rants in my AAR. If you move in combat mode, it's frequently 4 days before you leave the hex. This means it is quite difficult to successfully defend for a turn and then depart in a controlled way. But once again, just saying what was difficult for me (jumping into my game without testing against AI)- may be easy for you.

DEI Landings at Miri have begun, the base will probably fall tomorrow.

Malaya Khota Baru is taken and the FMSV brigade destroyed. Strikes keep coming in on Georgetown, but I have evacuated the field.

Phillipines Vigan and Aparri fell today, two surprises though. 1) No airstrikes were launched on Luzon, not sure why though. 2) There are no large infantry formations in the landing forces. It's a single detachement at Vigan and a bunch of engineers, BF and artillery at Aparri. Is this just how the TFs are set up when you start the game, so the infantry comes in later or is my opponent doing something else with these units ?

The invasion TF are too well covered, the DDs are retreating to Java, PT will stay behind and hopefully get a chance to shine later.

The shipping evacuation No losses in the souther DEI, not even a sub attack yet, but the two xAPs from Manilla were sunk north of Borneo, I wanted to try sneaking around the island, and so to Batavia, figuring he wouldn't be laying ambushes for the merchants there. There was one sub there though, who took out the Rochambeau, the President Madison ran straight in the Miri invasion covering force. The Ryuyo did turn up in the Celebes and attacked a couple of xAKL. Luckily none more important ships were targeted, but I'll have to find another way out for them though.

Pacific Nearly forgot to tell about the best part of the day. The KB is actually chasing Lexington. The day after the PH attacks, it moved southwest, direction of Truk I think. Today it was spotted Southeast of Midway, bearing Northwest, in the direction of the Lexington. Lex will now make another high speed run to the Northeast, this should keep her out of reach of the KB, even if it makes a high speed run straight North as well. The Lexington group is burning a lot of fuel and taking quite a bit of damage from all the high speed runs, but that isn't much of a problem, she'll have to head to Pearl for upgrading planes anyway. The good part is that this chase is taking the KB further away from main theatres, delaying it's entry there. If he tries a high speed run to catch me, even better. He'd take damage, and need refueling, taking him out of the fight even longer. I just hope that I haven't miscalculated and see Lex sink in the coming turns.

Q-ball Malaya is more or less a full scale withdrawal to Singapore. I just want to make sure that none of the units not on the main road are cut off. For example, from Kuantan to the main road is about a 10 day march, much shorter then the march from the border to the same spot on the road. I'm afraid if I don't at least delay, these units will get cut off.

The forward defense in the PI is indeed risky, but I'd like to see what it gives. Key here will be recon, if I see too many forces advancing I'll retreat, if he thinks he can push me aside with just his recon, well that's bad luck for him.

Burma plans will come tomorrow

Hartwig I thought you didn't have too much information on the enemy before you start seeing their movement. There are quite a bit of movements in China that I can see and if the Chinese can do it, the British surely can

second: You are totally correct re. the movement arrows. Whereas I did not get any for the hex we were discussing, there are in fact quite a number of arrows visible in China (which I mostly did not really perceive/make use of so far), and some in Malaya as well. Thanks for drawing my attention to this.

Malaya The buffaloes keep taking a toll on sweeping Nates, 2 downed for no loss today according to the combat reports. Unescorted airraids are keeping georgetown field closed, today a squadron will LRCAP it from Taiping.

A TF is sighted East of Kuantan, I'm guessing it's a landing forced aimed at Kuantan as sigint reveals extra troops embarking for the base. Everything carrying a torpedo in Singapore will fly against this fleet. There are still a CL and 2 DD in Singapore, meant as escorts for the POW, but they will sortie if the force is lightly escorted.

PI More strikes by zeroes, slightly more losses at my side. Surprisingly, the squadron flying P-35A has accounted for 6 kill up to now, while losing 5 or 6 planes from A2A combat. Good show. Clark is getting pounded, runway damage is up to 66.

A lot of merchants are still stuck in the area, some of the longer ranged ones are going to try and break out straight to the Pacific. Others must hope Ryuyo leaves so the can flee through the Eastern DEI. A question to other allied players, how many of the ships here do you usually manage to extract and how do you do it ? Japaneses players are free to tell me how they try to stop this excodus, so I can circumvent the usual blockades. DEI Nells attacked the DD from Manilla North of Borneo and sank one, they also took out one xAK around the same position. As the Celebes is now closed as well all ships will go into harbours and pray, only the DD will try a full speed run further along the coast and then South to Batavia. They may bump into a Japanese TF that's now North of Kuching.

The Celebes is being flooded by Dutch subs and S-boats, I'm hoping to get a hit on the Ryuyo and maybe find out what the other TF(s?) there are, navsearch planes reveal nothing, but an invasion against Tarakan isn't unlikely. The american cruisers and destroyers will leave Balikpapan for fear of a potential port strike.

China Not much movement by my opponent, the units North of Ichang entered the hex, tomorrow they'll bomb to see what is there. The enemy has entered Hong Kong, the Kowloon brigade is put in reserve as I'm expecting a bombardement tomorrow.

Pacific Lost track of KB again, I'm guessing this means it has retired as navsearch from Midway was looking East. This was done to make sure I found KB if it was still chasing Lexington. If it's still gone tomorrow I'll declare the battles after Pearl finished and put up a nice map of the manuevers.

8th Marine regiment will leave tomorrow, together with some FA Bat to reinforce Pago Pago, 2 infantry regiments are earmarked for Suva. More on my strategy for the Southern Islands later.

Malaya The buffaloes keep taking a toll on sweeping Nates, 2 downed for no loss today according to the combat reports. Unescorted airraids are keeping georgetown field closed, today a squadron will LRCAP it from Taiping.

A TF is sighted East of Kuantan, I'm guessing it's a landing forced aimed at Kuantan as sigint reveals extra troops embarking for the base. Everything carrying a torpedo in Singapore will fly against this fleet. There are still a CL and 2 DD in Singapore, meant as escorts for the POW, but they will sortie if the force is lightly escorted.

PI More strikes by zeroes, slightly more losses at my side. Surprisingly, the squadron flying P-35A has accounted for 6 kill up to now, while losing 5 or 6 planes from A2A combat. Good show. Clark is getting pounded, runway damage is up to 66.

A lot of merchants are still stuck in the area, some of the longer ranged ones are going to try and break out straight to the Pacific. Others must hope Ryuyo leaves so the can flee through the Eastern DEI. A question to other allied players, how many of the ships here do you usually manage to extract and how do you do it ? Japaneses players are free to tell me how they try to stop this excodus, so I can circumvent the usual blockades. DEI Nells attacked the DD from Manilla North of Borneo and sank one, they also took out one xAK around the same position. As the Celebes is now closed as well all ships will go into harbours and pray, only the DD will try a full speed run further along the coast and then South to Batavia. They may bump into a Japanese TF that's now North of Kuching.

The Celebes is being flooded by Dutch subs and S-boats, I'm hoping to get a hit on the Ryuyo and maybe find out what the other TF(s?) there are, navsearch planes reveal nothing, but an invasion against Tarakan isn't unlikely. The american cruisers and destroyers will leave Balikpapan for fear of a potential port strike.

China Not much movement by my opponent, the units North of Ichang entered the hex, tomorrow they'll bomb to see what is there. The enemy has entered Hong Kong, the Kowloon brigade is put in reserve as I'm expecting a bombardement tomorrow.

Pacific Lost track of KB again, I'm guessing this means it has retired as navsearch from Midway was looking East. This was done to make sure I found KB if it was still chasing Lexington. If it's still gone tomorrow I'll declare the battles after Pearl finished and put up a nice map of the manuevers.

8th Marine regiment will leave tomorrow, together with some FA Bat to reinforce Pago Pago, 2 infantry regiments are earmarked for Suva. More on my strategy for the Southern Islands later.

The counting of torpedoes for Allied and Japanese CVs in AE makes a whopping difference. No longer can the IJN (or Allied) CVLs or CVEs be torpedo-spewing machines of death until they run out of carrier sorties. Now, some of the CVEs only have 6 torpedo loads, IIRC, the CVLs have less than 20. That's it. After that, he'll either have to rearm, switch to bombs or have Ryujo rendered ineffective at stopping shipping after shooting its bolt.

As IJ player in PBEMs, the way I stopped the allied Asiatic fleet exodus was to bring KB into the initial strike on Manila, bypassing PH. Controversial, but effective. Sank damn near everything in the harbor though-SS, xAK, DDs, AVPs, PTs, everything. The range of KB strike aircraft was such that other ships in and around the PI were also destroyed (Naga harbor, CA Houston, etc.). When combined with early mining efforts around the PI, SCTF intercepts and submarine interdiction of straits around the Celebes, I think my efforts have been effective in limiting escapees. But this approach required a commitment to 'get 'em all'. If the IJN doesn't commit to a thorough destruction of the PI Asiatic fleet, you should be able to get some out.

Split 'em into penny packets-1 or 2 ships per TF. Multiple locations, multiple waypoints, multiple destinations. He doesn't have enough offensive firepower with just 1 CVL to get anywhere near all of these ships it they sortie simultaneously.

Lastly-a dirty little trick for you. If his CVL aircraft are set to naval attack, they're not set to ASW efforts. Time your breakout with a CVL TF hunt with your GOOD submarines (e.g., Dutch or British) leading the efforts to take a potshot at the CVL TF. Keep your temporarily worthless USN fleet boats with their crappy Mk. 14s out of the way for now.

Problem is that he hasn't used any torpedoes yet. The xAKL TF he found were either at extreme range, or he is purposefully using bombs, but that's still enough to kill off merchants, otherwise solid tactics, some of which I'm trying already.

A question on the carrier sorties, what kind of flights are used ? Looking at Enterprise, which hasn't been in combat yet, standard search and CAP flights don't count against the limit, but what about CAP that actually has to fight off attacks ?

Whenever something major happened (wheter or not an event is major is also a function of the free time I have), but I haven't got the turn yet, I'll post these 'breaking news' posts with the info I got from viewing the combat replays. You'll also find these a bit more 'propagandesque' then regular posts

Today, the forces of Imperial Japan undertook concurrent landings on the Malayan peninsula and Norhwest Borneo. These landings were heroically opposed by the British air force and Dutch submarines, several transports were sunk and escorting combat ships severely damaged. Our ground forces have pinned the enemy on the beaches and will drive them back into the sea during the following days.

Burma is yet another front were the allies don't have much choice at the start of the game. They must give way to the Japanese, preferably in good order and maybe with a local counter-attack thrown in. What makes this front a bit more fun is that you'll actually be able to save your LCUs deployed here. Right now, I'm pulling out units from the short stretch of land from Mergui to Moulmein. After this is finished, I'll linger a bit in Pegu, forcing the Japanese to bring in forces. After this is done, I'll retreat fairly quickly. Doing this too slow and you risk being overtaken by the Japanese using one of the three roads running South-West. As you can see, delaying actions will be fought in the jungle by the small battallions. They won't hold up long, but will at least force the enemy to deploy for combat. The BFF brigade will be posted in a flanking position, it probably won't see combat there, it's just there to discourage a run around by armour. Once again I'm planning a location for counterattacks, once again, these probably won't materialize, but I think it's important to keep thinking were you could hurt the enemy. Forces marched in from India will strenghthen some positions. These aren't here to hold, but to provide a screen for the Burmese units to retreat behind if they have taken serious losses. The independent batallions will hold the centre, the most dangerous position, but these are more expendable then the Australians or Indian brigades, so it's a logical choice.

The RAF will contribute by bombing enemy columns and providing fighter cover against enemy air raids. The fighter squadrons deployed are one AVG and a buffalo squadron, these can be strenghtened by the incoming Hurricane squadrons once they arrive. Bombers will be the Blenheims that will start coming in soon.

Naval support will be limited to a cruiser force in Calcutta, they will sortie if the enemy tries to cut off the troops in Akyab by amphibious assault, although this is highly unlikely.

Japanese forces made amphibious assaults at 3 separate bases, Kuantan, Singkawang and Guam, but I'd still rate it as a good day for the allies.

Kuantan The largest landing, escorted by 2 BB, 2 CA and more smaller warships. Losses to the invasion forces aren't too bad, 2 xAK damaged, one will likely sink, light damage to a CA. Parts of 2 infantry regiments are ashore, with supporting elements, the troops at Kuantan will retreat, though I don't like giving such a good airbase away. For some reason, the Vildebeest didn't fly with torpedoes, could this have something to do with overstacking ?

Singkawang This invasion is doomed. Even before they could land, one transport was roughly handled by the O19. In the morning a squadron of swordfish showed up, damaging a further two, one of which was later sunk by 019. The only troops ashore are a part of an AF Bn, they'll be shock attacked tomorrow.

Guam My opponent remarked that he underestimated the defences here. I'm not sure what he landed here. Intel says 600 men, he managed to transport it here in 2xAKL and an xAK so it isn't much.

PI Ryuyo keeps on killing xAKL, but no valuable ships have been sunk by the Kates. Some attacks on shipping by Nells and Betties, but the little CAP that is diverted from Manilla and Clark shoots down a couple of them. Seven zeros are reported shot down, for the loss of four P-26 and only one P-40.

China The corps starting North of Ichang have entered the city, I outnumber him nearly 3-1 in AV, so let's see if I can rout him here.

KB I had seen KB move north after my attack on the oiler and now asked whether that had been to chase the Lexington. He said he'd could tell me the reason in a couple of days, but not yet. Is the KB supporting some action further up North ? An early attack on Midway?, it's not like KB support would be needed for an Aleutian landing. Or still chasing Lexington ?

Today Tokyo Rose made her grand entrée, announcing the capture of Wake Island. That isn't the only new landing today, Tarakan's welcome committee was also called upon today, the Japanese navy is certainly having some busy days.

Malaya Two major points of interest here, 1) Kuantan fell, the brigade defending was already retreating and left the hex during the night. 2) Zeroes have been called in to handle the RAF. Nates just weren't getting the job done, zeroes apparently can, they shoot down 3 buffaloes.

Borneo The counter of the KNIL at Singkawang comes to nothing. 2 Japanese squads get disabled, though I had expected this unit to be routed.

The landing at Tarakan brings in enough troops to take the base tomorrow. 3 PB each get 3 hits from the CD guns, maybe one will sink as a consolation price. Ryuyo is covering these landings and today launched strikes at shipping at Balikpapan, they sunk a dutch CM and PG, but the dutch pilots flying CAP claim 4 kates downed in return.

PI Air combat is getting worse. Clark has been closed down and the squadrons there are down to only a couple of operational planes. I don't want to move the squadrosn to Manilla because that would overstack the field there. If I add planes written off, I lost 3 P-40B and 5 P-40E for only 1 zero claimed today. On land no extra units seem to have been landed yet, and no advance outside of the beacheads has been made.

Pacific Wake is attacked and taken by a single SNLF. A counterattack at Guam comes to nothing, the enemy has only 5 AV to my 10, but the jungle benefits the invaders. At least he'll have to bring in extra forces to take the island.

China Saving the best for last, a shock attack in Ichang cost the Japanese 3000 casualties to my 2000, a result the Chinese would sign for anytime. The attack will be continued tommorrow, if the Japanese haven't retreated by then that is. A deliberate attack at Hong Kong failed, but light casulaties at both sides.

Sub warfare A busy day for subs, so they get their own section today. - Porpoise is the only sub to claim a kill, the xAK Tamishama Maru, North of Luzon. - Saury probably took her first scalp today, the PB Kamitsu Maru, it doesn't show up on the sunk list, but a torpedo for a PB this small ? - The dissapointement of the day was the attack of KXVIII, she got a hit on CS Chitose, but with a malfunctioning torpedo. The law of inverse target worth is at work here, take an insignificant target and the worst of weapons will work, take a high value target and the best of weapons will malfunction.

The Japanese did get a couple of hits in return, Porpoise is slightly damaged and Sculpin is up to 18/31/0 from 5 hits. Both are returning to port.

Not a terribly interesting day, mainly the expected continuation of the previous day, though the victory at Ichang is uplifting

Malaya A strike on the Japanese airfield at Kuantan ended in a little disaster. The squadron buffalos that sweeped the base first shot and were shot up by zeroes and oscars, though it was a small win for the Japanese. The raid that followed was a big defeat though, the buffalos escorting the Blenheims were shot up, losing about 5 of their number for 2 destroyed zeroes, one of which was on the ground.

Borneo Tarakan fell, but not before the guns could do a bit more damage to some Japanese PB

The counterattack at Singkawang was once again unsuccesful, despite overwelming odds. Even if it's just a bf, I'd like to destroy it.

PI Zero sweeps claim a P-40B and P-35, Clark is now definitely closed by even more bombing raids. Two xAK are lost due to my carelessness.

China Too early to say anything about the situation here, we're both just assembling forces and getting a feel for the theatre. My stack at Ichang now soundly kicked the Japanese and RGC division out. Losses 6000 to 2000 so a great victory for the Chinese.

Malaya Large scale air raids (+50 bombers) are attacking retreating allied troops. Casualties are about 150 a day. The attacks are at Taiping where I still own an airfield, so a buffalo squadron will give CAP today.

PI No change in the situation, my air force is being further depleted for preciously few damage to my opponents. I'm thinking of retreating the P-40E units to give extra airframes for the units that'll move to Australia soon. It would take away the last remaining strength, but on the other hand, single P-40s rising to meet zero sweeps isn't much use either. Anyone any thoughts on this? Some AM were sunk by nells when clearing the straight at Bataan.

China An artillery unit ventured North of Canton on it's own. I'm guessing a lack of coordination with infantry is the cause, the unit was sent back with moderate casualties. A corps West of Wuchang was decimated and routed by an enemy divsion.

Borneo The KNIL kicked the invaders of Singkawang back into the sea, it's only a token victory though, a best case scenario is that these landings cost the enemy 3 xAK (but they might have made it back to Indonesia) and one AF coy is destroyed, if there weren't any surviving fragments on the xAK. Still however small the victory, it's a victory none the less.

I'm expecting new landings on the East coast of Borneo, multpile TFs are sighted in the Celebes and a carrier is reported by my patrol planes. I'm thinking about pulling the torpedo bombers out of Singapore to provide some measure of defence for attacks on the southern part of Borneo

PI Not much happening here, the Japanese still aren't advancing on Luzon. I'm guessing he's waiting for larger infantry formations to arrive. The AV Langly and AO trinity were sunk by Kates trying to escape the Phillipines. The kates from Ryuyo are giving some good illustrations on the strength of 1E Level bombing, today they achieved 7/9 bomb hits on Langly and 13/9 bombs on Trinity.

Sub wars PB Kamitsu Maru was claimed sunk East of Formosa today by Sturgeon, the crew is having some bad luck, because she was already hit by a torpedo 2 days ago, when she was covering the invasion fleets near Aparri.

17/12/41 Malaya Not much changing on this front, bombing raids continue, but the British and Indian forces are retreating in good order. Wirraways accidentally attacked Kuantan, the escorting buffaloes lose 3 planes.

PI Sweeps and bombing raids continue. The zeroes are coming in at around 30,000 feet, so I'll try to bump up the height of my CAP to that altitude. P-40 will be next to useless there, but zeroes are a lot less effective there too, maybe it'll cut down on my losses a bit.

Pacific Japanese reinforcements are landing on Guam, it won't be long before the base falls now.

China Bad recon indicated small enemy forces advancing on Kweiteh (small dot base in the plains), a shock attack from the two small corps there ended in a slaughter when the opposition turned out to be a Japanese division. One of the corps was wiped out during the attack and the other was routed in the Japanese assault.

Near Ichang an RGC. Division is chased out of the forest to the Southeast of the city.

Up North there is some fighting in the mountains near Paetow, the situation is balanced at the moment.

Subs Some victories and some defeats in the sub wars today.

- KIX and S-38 have been hunting for DD at Tarakan for the past few days, but haven't been able to land a hit. S-38 took quite a bit of flood damage, but little systems. KIX got tired of missing and took out a small PB. The target was obliterated. - Sturgeon claims a second kill in two days, a medium size xAK in a surface attack. Her aft torpedo tubes are damaged in the encounter and she's returning to base.

- A sub launched patrol plane is sighted near LA. Naval search missions will try to locate these subs while ASW TF will attack. I haven't enough confidence in my ASW planes at the moment to count on them to keep the subs in check.

Expected enemy moves

As you can see the enemy is likely attacking Manado, though I'm a bit surprise the unit isn't unloading yet. Defences for the invasion seem light, I'm sure Ryuyo retired North past the Phillipines and that some CS are in the area, so these may be misidentifications, if it are the CS, it also would explain why my minesweepers are still afloat.

The question now is, do I bring in the American cruisers ? They are at least 2 days out, meaning the troops would already have landed by then, but waiting for the next invasion to counterstrike just means I'm giving him more time to bring in KB and make any surface forces in the DEI as good as useless.